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How to engage your audience using the latest facial recognition and animation technologies

Whether it’s how-tos, video advertising or video blogging, making simple videos for the web has become easy thanks to the rise of YouTube and front-facing cameras in every laptop, tablet and smart phone.

Those videos, though, often lack not only professionalism in terms of lighting, editing and sets but can also be a struggle to make a simple face-to-camera video tie into your brand effectively – particularly if you’re trying to communicate a big idea or show a diagram or map, or interact with something on the screen.

On the other hand, creating a smoother, more professional look by either using expensive studio equipment or by replacing a real human face with a high-quality animation can be eye-wateringly expensive. Using facial recognition to map onto an animated character could be a short-cut.

Facial recognition can allow you to do several powerful things at a budget you can afford. Most obviously, the character appearing on the screen doesn’t have to look just like you, they can be tailored to best fit your audience – whether that’s a cute lion for a kids’ product or a cutting-edge trendy bloke – without you having to grow the beard!

Pointing to things

It sounds stupid but the ability for an animated character to use their hands and arms to point at things appearing on the screen can give a better presentation than either a simple voice-over with animated arrows, or a webcam video with a person holding up the item. Zooming in and rotating an object are easier to do with a virtual object than a real one, letting people see what’s best about your product more quickly.

Similarly, an animated character can easily walk from one setting to another without having to manage a real-life transition, showing things like day/night cycles or moving between two disparate locations more smoothly.

Tying a presentation together

It’s hard to present a complex subject with just a webcam; one area where animation is great for engaging an audience is when you need to show, for instance, how to complete multiple steps. An animated character can help your audience through, tying the presentation together and helping the audience make sense of what’s going on.

Building your brand

The best animated characters, like the Compare the Market meerkats, become their own part of your brand’s appeal, and you can use them over and over. So designing an appealing animated character that is yet cheap to produce new content with means that you have a flexible tool to rapidly spread your message in a way that audiences find appealing.